Last updated: Aug. 9, 2008
Week 1 July 14-18
The Anglo-Saxon period objectives
After reading Beowulf and writing about the following topics, students will be able to make connections between the Anglo-Saxons and twenty-first century Americans.
1 What is the Anglo-Saxon attitude toward wealth, treasure, money?
2 What is the purpose of fighting?
3 What is the attitude toward women?
4 How do Anglo-Saxons see themselves in relationship to the universe? Do they seem to feel that they are favored by the gods or do they feel a malign or negative response from their gods? Do they have a comfortable vision of an afterlife?
5 What is the purpose of the stories of tribal feuding?
6 What are the characteristics of a good ruler? A bad?
Web sites that may be of interest:
July 14-16
Click on the the icon "Course Content" and then the Beowulf site and look at the links to Maps and Sutton Hoo; view the images and watch the movie on Sutton Hoo; study the links of History and Religion. Read Beowulf, pp. 29-69, and write response paper # 1 answering the first three questions above. Send a Word attachment via email. Due Thurs. July 17 noon.
Read Beowulf, pp. 69-97, and write response paper # 2 answering questions 4, 5, and 6, above. Send a Word attachment via email. Due Mon. July 21 noon.
Week 2 July 21-25
Medieval period objectives
Primary learning objective: To show how the medieval (Middle Ages) period affects the West in the twenty-first century.
Individual learning objectives. In the mid-term exam students will answer some of these questions.
1 Understand the difference between the Ptolemaic (earth-centered) vision of the universe and the Copernican (heliocentric) and how the difference between the two affects humankind's faith in God.
2 Understand the hierarchical vision of life; cosmic, social (feudal), individual (the relationship of the soul and the body).
To what extent does this ancient concept affect us today? Do we believe in the separation of soul and body?
3 Understand St. Augustine's influence on literature.
Does his influence persist in the ttwenty-first century?
4 Understand courtly love.
To what extent has courtly love shaped our expectations of love?
Assignment Mon. July 21
Click on "Course Content": On Chaucer's site, view in the following order -- cosmos, the social order, art, cathedrals. Watch the movies on the cathedrals. Write response paper # 3 on the connections among art, architecture, cosmos, and social structures. In other words, what do the cosmos, the social order, music, art, and the cathedrals have in common with each other? Due Tues. July 22 noon.
Websites that may be of interest:
The Labyrinth: a search engine for medieval materials
Assignment Tues.
Read additional information on the Chaucer site: "Ideas," then "Canterbury Tales." Also, read these selections of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales: "The General Prologue"; "The Miller's Tale"; "The Wife of Bath's Tale."
Important notice: your textbook gives you the original Middle English Canterbury Tales. Feel free to use a modern English translation which you may buy or locate on the Internet, gutenberg.org
Assignment
Response paper # 4: In what way does the tale fit the personality and description of the teller of the tale? And in what way may "The Wife of Bath's" and "The Miller's Tale" have an Augustine interpretation; in other words, what is the Christian moral or meaning below the surface of the tales? Due noon Wed. July 23
Assignment Wed.
Read The Canterbury Tales: "The Merchant's Tale"; "The Franklin's Tale"; "The Clerk's Tale"
Assignment
No essay 1: For the Discussion Group, analyze what Chaucer is saying about marriage in these last three tales. Which of the marriages is the best and why?
Week 3 July 28-Aug. 1
Assignment
Read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, p. 112. Read History and Religion on the Sir Gawain site.
For additional information, check these links to relevant websites.
Assignment
Response paper # 5: Why does Gawain keep the green girtle and not pass it on to his host as agreed between them? Should he have kept the green girtle or given it to the host and gone willingly to meet his death at the Green Knight's hands? What does the court learn from this adventure when Gawain goes back and reports on his "failings"? Due Thurs. noon July 31
Assignment
Thurs. and Fri. July 31-Aug. 1: Read the excerpts in the textbook on Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, p. 301. Read History and Religion on the Malory Site.
Web sites:
Labyrinth: a search engine for medieval material
Week 4 Aug. 4-8
Renaissance Period
Assignment
Read Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I, one act each day, Mon.-Fri.
Shakespeare's Sonnets (optional, no assignment, sonnets will not be on exam)
Essay due Fri. Aug. 8 by noon: Compare and contrast Hal's two "fathers," King Henry IV and Falstaff. ( Technically, Falstaff is not Hal's father but he serves as an alternative father.) Make sure that the essay includes quotations from the later acts as well as the first. Convince me that you've read the play.
Week 5 Aug. 11-15
Read Jonathan Swift's, Gulliver's Travels, Part 4. A Voyage to the Country to the Houyhnhnms, p. 1069
Response paper # 6 due Aug. 13 by noon: The important thing to remember is that Swift is writing a satire: he is making fun -- rather savage fun -- of human beings. He doesn't like people much and everything about the yahoos, who are so people-like that they are a metaphor for people, suggests his contempt and disapproval of how human beings have conducted themselves on the planet. His general contempt for people is seen in his portrayal of the Yahoos, a people-like species so similar to people that we must take them as a metaphor for people.
His specific disapproval of people is seen in Gulliver's explanation to the Houyhnhnms of 1) war; 3) lawyers; 4) medicine and health. Discuss what Swift thinks of these three as they relate to human beings.
Final exam Thurs 14 due by noon. Topic:
Choose three heroes from the literature we have read this semester and write
about their shared qualities as well as their differences. Make sure you take
into consideration the historical and religious framework of each piece of
literature you choose.
Evaluate the heroes in context; that is to say, evaluate them in terms of the
values of their particular age. For example, be sure you understand the nature
of the epic hero if you are writing about Beowulf; be sure you take into
consideration the values of a Christian world in writing about Gawain, etc. You
can't judge these characters by modern standards; to do so is to miss the point,
though you might comment on modern standards in the conclusion. A good
conclusion can be daring. You don't have to support anything in the conclusion
with quotations as you do in the body of the essay.
|
|